Owen Sela's Nick Maasten is a fast-talking P.I. of the kind that proliferating in the 70s. There are three adventures in which he appears, published quickly, together, in 1972-73. His other novels vary more, but they all share exotic locations, beautiful women, guns, and more or less wacky plots. The Portuguese Fragment was published in 1973, and is a cocktail of many other characters busy in that period (Maasten puts cherries in his martinis). I found this amusing, but so busy throwing another confusion at the reader that I could not now recapitulate the plot or remember which characters do what. The most intriguing mystery, however, is who Owen Sela is, or was.